Retaining Wall Design & Installation in Madison, WI

Retaining walls can serve several different purposes and take on many different looks, sometimes serving multiple purposes at once.

Retaining Walls Solve Many Problems

Retaining walls can provide a helpful barrier for safety, privacy, or design. A retaining wall can separate property lines or separate one area of your yard from another to create distinct outdoor “rooms.”

Most often, retaining walls are a function of structural necessity. As a problem-solving tool, a retaining wall might help solve an erosion problem, improve grading and drainage in trouble spot, or break up a steep hill to increase safety or access to an area.

When we can combine structural necessities with aesthetic enhancements, retaining walls can actually get pretty exciting. Retaining walls can incorporate stairs, terraces, seating, and planters to break up lines and provide practical human uses. Retaining walls can also be beautiful in and of themselves, drawing lines in your landscape and creating hard structure to contrast with softer, organic elements.

Retaining Wall Materials

We build retaining walls from a wide variety of materials. We can help you narrow down material options once we identify the purpose of the wall and learn more about the desired look you’d like to achieve. Not every material can work in every situation. Common walls include boulder walls, natural limestone snapped walls, wooden walls, and many choices of segmented retaining wall (SRW) concrete wall blocks.  

Building Retaining Walls that Last

The scope of excavation, reinforcement, and drainage can also vary by wall type, size, and purpose. Typically our walls will be installed with a compacted gravel base to resist settling over time, as well as a drainage system behind the wall.  Water and hydrostatic pressure are the biggest causes of retaining wall failure. Drainage could consist of a clear draining stone or a pipe; very often, we use both approaches in the same build.